Where It Began(37)

XXVII


I HAVE MY HANDS FULL WITH LEGAL ASSISTANCE from Vivian, which turns out to be one of those hideous life lessons in the Be Careful What You Wish For category.

Vivian is so enthusiastically down with Agnes’s directives, you would think she was gearing up for a shopping trip to the fashion capitals of Europe. Apart from the fact that she keeps coming back from Barneys with the world’s ugliest clothes and forcing me to put them on, such as a bottom-of-the-unwashed-bowl-of-oatmeal-colored cashmere sweater Amish women would wear if they happened to shop Wilshire Boulevard.

“There,” she says, picking at some oatmeal-colored fuzz balls because God knows how long this puppy has been languishing on a remote shelf. “Demure.” She looks me up and down. “Agnes says you can’t miss with demure.”

The Barneys trip, it turns out, is just part of her agenda. She has a calendar; she has a list; she has a telephone voice so obsequious and kiss-ass that you’d think she was trying to get me off death row. My life is now dominated by the Agnes Nash Get Out of Jail Free flowchart that Vivian has fastened to the refrigerator door with retro magnetic pineapples.

And first on the agenda for the upscale delinquent youth of today is a visit with the lawyer. All I can think is: Okay, Gabriella, you can stop being freaked out now.

But it doesn’t work.

The faint but persistent hope that now the whole thing can maybe start to be over is completely overwhelmed by the less-than-faint fear that getting too optimistic might not be such a great idea. So I get dressed for the occasion, trying not to flip out, getting dizzy when I look down to pull on my sandals.

Unfortunately, Vivian’s idea of looking demure for this lawyer is not exactly what you’d think Agnes Nash had in mind. She comes back from Sunset Plaza holding out a little burnt-orange suit with the kind of boring jacket I’m not planning to wear until I turn forty and a six-inch-long pleated skirt. But before I have a chance to point out that I can’t wear it or anything like it, I am wearing it and in the car on the way to Century City to see the lawyer Agnes picked out for me.

His office is in one of the towers with the thirty-eight-dollar valet parking, and Vivian doesn’t even try to get around this by parking for cheap under the shopping center next door and walking over.

His suite is so big that the elevator opens into his reception area, acres of massive Persian rugs and soft lighting, and two receptionists who either have to be earning mega-bucks for answering the phone or some lawyer’s hot mistress based on the size of the giant diamond studs in their earlobes.

It’s hard to believe that springing teenage thugs could be such a ritzy profession, but according to Billy, all the best law firms keep someone on hand who can spring their top clients’ little thug kids and someone else who can hide their money and scare the shit out of their old wives when they want to get new wives.

Vivian heads to the shiny mahogany counter and says, “We’re here for Ted Healy. Agnes Nash sent us.”

This perks the receptionist right up. She comes out from behind the counter, possibly just so we can see that she’s wearing Manolos and we aren’t, walks us over to leather chairs big enough to swallow and digest us in a single gulp, and sends the assistant receptionist to get us cappuccinos.

To add to the surreal experience, when Mr. Healy finally ushers us into his gymnasium-sized office, he looks like an extremely well-dressed, ginormous teddy bear. This is probably why he got stuck doing juvie, where it doesn’t matter if your flaky little clients sit there marveling that you can even find pants that big and wondering just how much you have to eat to fill out those large pants. Probably the DA takes his plea bargains because he’s afraid that Mr. Healy will sit on him and squash him like a Swedish pancake. Although, thanks to Agnes, we are probably going to get our own personal, cooperative DA.

“Well,” Vivian says, leaning into the giant, shiny lawyer desk, fluttering her eyelashes as if being really, really charming will help make my little legal problema go away, “Now what, Mr. Healy?”

“Well, Vivian,” he says, disgustingly charming right back at ya, tilting his head to one side and pursing his lips. “That depends on Gabriella here.”

“Gabby,” I say, in what comes out in too much of a sullen teen voice under the circumstances. Pissed off as I am to be walking around in tiny little mincing steps for fear the tiny little pleated skirt will fan out and show off my panties, I am not so brainless as to miss the part where this guy has to more than like me.

Why else would Vivian have stuck me in the six-inch pleated skirt in the first place?

But Mr. Healy, presumably familiar with the sullen disposition of teen thugs in strange outfits, doesn’t seem to mind. “Gabby it is,” he says. He is quite enthusiastic about this, actually, as if having a nickname is an asset for the youthful offender.

Then he gives us this big, dopey spiel about how he’s my lawyer blabitty-blah until Vivian figures out he is tossing her out of the room and she wriggles out the double mahogany doors as if her dress itched. It is extremely embarrassing, but Mr. Healy seems to be enjoying it.

So then he can give me his even bigger dopey spiel about how for him to be able to work with me effectively, I have to level with him when he asks me a question.

“But I don’t remember anything.”

He looks mystified.

“Gabby,” he says carefully. “I’m not sure I’m clear on what you’re trying to tell me here.”